King David Hotel bombing

The British administrative headquarters for Mandatory Palestine, housed in the southern wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, were bombed in a terrorist attack on 22 July 1946, by the militant right-wing Zionist underground organization Irgun during the Jewish insurgency. Ninety-one people of various nationalities were killed, including Arabs, Britons and Jews, and 46 were injured.

The hotel was the site of the central offices of the British Mandatory authorities of Palestine, principally the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and the Headquarters of the British Armed Forces in Palestine and Transjordan.

Background

Motivation

thumb|[[Zionist leaders arrested in Operation Agatha. Left to right: David Remez, Moshe Sharett, Yitzhak Gruenbaum, Dov Yosef, Shenkarsky, David Hacohen, Halperin.]]

The Irgun committed the attack in response to Operation Agatha, known in Israel as "Black Saturday". British troops had searched the Jewish Agency on 29 June and confiscated large quantities of documents directly implicating the Haganah in the Jewish insurgency against Britain. The intelligence information was taken to the King David Hotel, where it was initially kept in the offices of the Secretariat in the southern wing. The Irgun was determined to destroy that wing of the hotel in order to destroy the incriminating documents.

Hotel layout

In plan form, the six-story hotel, which was opened in 1932 as the first modern luxury hotel in Jerusalem, The military telephone exchange was situated in the basement.

Previous attacks

Amichai Paglin, chief of operations of the Irgun, developed a remote-controlled mortar with a range of four miles that was nicknamed the V3 by British military engineers. In 1945, after attacks using the mortar had been executed against several police stations, six V3s were buried in the olive grove park south of the King David Hotel. Three were aimed at the government printing press and three at the hotel itself. Despite this approval for the project, repeated delays in executing the operation were requested by the Haganah, in response to changes unfolding in the political situation. The plan was finalized between Amichai Paglin (Irgun alias 'Gidi'), Chief of Operations of the Irgun, and Itzhak Sadeh, commander of the Palmach. It would be possible to enter the hotel more easily at that time as well.

It would have been impossible to have planted the bomb in the Régence any later than 14:00 because it was always full of customers after that time. This led to recriminations between the Haganah and Irgun later. The Haganah said that they had specified that the attack should take place later in the day when the offices would have been emptier of people.

Leaks and rumours

Shortly after noon Palestine time, the London UPI bureau received a short message stating that 'Jewish terrorists have just blown up the King David Hotel!'. The UPI stringer who had sent it, an Irgun member, had wanted to scoop his colleagues. Not knowing that the operation had been postponed by an hour, he sent the message before the operation had been completed. The bureau chief decided against running the story until more details and further confirmation had been obtained. There were other leaks.

After placing the bombs in the La Regence Cafe, the Irgun men quickly slipped out and detonated a small explosive in the street outside the hotel, reportedly to keep passers-by away from the area. The latter agrees with the version of events presented by Bethell and Thurston Clarke. According to Bethell, Abramovitz managed to get to the taxi getaway car along with six other men. Tsadok escaped with the other men on foot. Both were found by the police in the Jewish Old Quarter of Jerusalem the next day, with Abramovitz already dead from his wounds.

Ninety-one people were killed, most of them being staff of the hotel or Secretariat: 21 were first-rank government officials, including under-secretary Robert Paus Platt, the most senior official among the victims, and seven assistant secretaries; 49 were second-rank clerks, typists and messengers, junior members of the Secretariat, employees of the hotel and canteen workers; 13 were soldiers; three policemen; and five were bystanders. By nationality, there were 41 Arabs, 28 British citizens, 17 Jews, two Armenians, one Russian, one Greek and one Egyptian. Forty-nine people were injured. No identifiable traces were found of thirteen of those killed. Chief Secretary for the Government of Palestine, Sir John Shaw, noted that the majority of the dead had been members of his own personal staff: "British, Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Armenians; senior officers, police, my orderly, my chauffeur, messengers, guards, men and women—young and old—they were my friends."

British Prime Minister Clement Attlee commented in the House of Commons:

thumb|upright|British premier [[Clement Attlee]]

Hon. Members will have learned with horror of the brutal and murderous crime committed yesterday in Jerusalem. Of all the outrages which have occurred in Palestine, and they have been many and horrible in the last few months, this is the worst. By this insane act of terrorism 93 innocent people have been killed or are missing in the ruins. The latest figures of casualties are 41 dead, 52 missing and 53 injured. I have no further information at present beyond what is contained in the following official report received from Jerusalem:

It appears that after exploding a small bomb in the street, presumably as a diversionary measure—this did virtually no damage—a lorry drove up to the tradesmen's entrance of the King David Hotel and the occupants, after holding up the staff at pistol point, entered the kitchen premises carrying a number of milk cans. At some stage of the proceedings, they shot and seriously wounded a British soldier who attempted to interfere with them. All available information so far is to the effect that they were Jews. Somewhere in the basement of the hotel they planted bombs which went off shortly afterwards. They appear to have made good their escape.

Every effort is being made to identify and arrest the perpetrators of this outrage. The work of rescue in the debris, which was immediately organised, still continues. The next-of-kin of casualties are being notified by telegram as soon as accurate information is available. The House will wish to express their profound sympathy with the relatives of the killed and with those injured in this dastardly outrage.

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In a visit made sometime before the attack, Field Marshal Lord Montgomery, soon to become Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), the professional head of the British Army, had told Lieutenant General Sir Evelyn Barker, the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the British Forces in Palestine and Trans-Jordan, to emphasise to the British servicemen that they were facing a cruel, fanatical and cunning enemy, and there was no way of knowing who was friend and who foe. Since there were female terrorists as well, according to Montgomery, all fraternising with the local population would have to cease. Within a few minutes of the bombing, Barker translated this instruction into an order that "all Jewish places of entertainment, cafes, restaurants, shops and private dwellings" be out of bounds to all ranks. He concluded: "I appreciate that these measures will inflict some hardship on the troops, but I am certain that if my reasons are fully explained to them, they will understand their propriety and they will be punishing the Jews in a way the race dislikes as much as any, by striking at their pockets and showing our contempt of them." The future Israeli diplomat Abba Eban, then an officer in the British Army, leaked the order to the press. Barker's wording was interpreted as antisemitic and caused much outrage and bad publicity for the British. Barker was nearly dismissed from his position over the scandal, and only Montgomery's threat to resign if Barker was sacked saved him his job.

In the aftermath of the attack, the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem were placed under curfew for 16 days until 7 August. On 30 July, the British Army and Palestine Police launched Operation Shark, a cordon and search operation of the entire city of Tel Aviv and sections of Jaffa. The operation was carried out due to British military intelligence having incorrectly concluding that most or all of the bombers had come from Tel Aviv rather than Jerusalem. During the operation, the entire population was placed under curfew while buildings were searched and 102,000 people were screened, with hundreds arrested on suspicion of involvement in insurgent activity. Irgun leader Menachem Begin evaded the dragnet by hiding in a secret compartment of his home but Lehi leader Yitzhak Shamir was arrested and interned in Africa. Five arms caches were discovered during the operation. The British cabinet had also considered a massive arms search operation in Jewish settlements to disarm the Yishuv, imposing a collective fine of £500,000 on the Yishuv, and suspending legal Jewish immigration, but in the end decided to only approve the operation in Tel Aviv. The British cabinet also approved the release of a white paper titled Statement of Information Relating to Acts of Violence which presented evidence gathered by British intelligence that the Haganah was cooperating with the Irgun and Lehi and that this had the approval of the Jewish Agency leadership.

The attack did not change Britain's stance toward an Anglo-American agreement on Palestine, which was then in its concluding phase. In a letter dated 25 July 1946, Prime Minister Attlee wrote to American President Harry S. Truman: "I am sure you will agree that the inhuman crime committed in Jerusalem on 22 July calls for the strongest action against terrorism but having regard to the sufferings of the innocent Jewish victims of Nazism this should not deter us from introducing a policy designed to bring peace to Palestine with the least possible delay."

Israeli and Zionist reactions

The Jewish political leadership publicly condemned the attack. The Jewish Agency expressed "their feelings of horror at the base and unparalleled act perpetrated today by a gang of criminals". The Jewish National Council denounced the bombing. Hatsofeh, a Jewish newspaper in Palestine, labelled the Irgun perpetrators "fascists".

The Irgun issued an initial statement accepting responsibility for the attack, mourning their Jewish victims, and calling into fault the British for what they saw as a failure to respond to the warnings.

Richard Crossman, a British Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP), whose experience on the Anglo-American Committee had made him sympathetic to Zionism, visited Chaim Weizmann shortly after the attack. Weizmann's ambivalence towards Zionist violence was apparent in the conversation. While condemning it, he also stated that he sympathised with its causes. When the King David Hotel bombing was mentioned, Weizmann started crying: "I can't help feeling proud of our boys. If only it had been a German headquarters, they would have gotten the Victoria Cross." Jewish militant organisations sought to shift the blame to Shaw for the deaths.

Begin said that Shaw had been responsible for the failure to evacuate the hotel: "A police officer called Shaw and told him, 'The Jews say that they have placed bombs in the King David.' And the reply was, 'I am here to give orders to the Jews, not to take orders from them.'"

Bethell says that all of the British witnesses who were in the vicinity of the hotel at the time of the explosion confirmed what Shaw said. None of them had any knowledge of a warning having been sent in time to make evacuation of the hotel possible. They said that, like themselves, Shaw had not known about the bomb beforehand and that he bore no responsibility for putting colleagues' lives at risk immediately before the explosion. The only criticism made was that Shaw should have closed the Régence restaurant and put guards on the service entrance weeks before. Shaw agreed that not having done this was a mistake. The decision not to do it had been made because "everyone was under orders to preserve the semblance of normality in Palestine", "social life had to be allowed to continue" and because nobody had believed that the Irgun would put the whole of the Secretariat, which had many Jewish employees, in danger.

Terrorism

The bombing has been discussed in literature about the practice and history of terrorism. It has been called one of the most lethal terrorist attacks of the 20th century.

Security analyst Bruce Hoffman wrote of the bombing in his 1999 book Inside Terrorism:

"Unlike many terrorist groups today, the Irgun's strategy was not deliberately to target or wantonly harm civilians. At the same time, though, the claim of Begin and other apologists that warnings were issued cannot absolve either the group or its commander for the ninety-one people killed and forty-five others injured ... Indeed, whatever nonlethal intentions the Irgun might or might not have had, the fact remains that a tragedy of almost unparalleled magnitude was inflicted ... so that to this day the bombing remains one of the world's single most lethal terrorist incidents of the twentieth century." In another 2006 book, Gus Martin wrote that the attack is one of the best historical examples of successful terrorism, it having yielded, according to him, everything that the Irgun had wanted. He went on to compare the aftermath of the bombing to that of Carlos Marighella's campaign with the Brazilian Communist Party. Max Abrahms contests the view that the civilian deaths in the King David Hotel expedited British withdrawal from Palestine, stating that the widespread public backlash—including from Jews—combined with a British crackdown "nearly destroyed the Irgun" and "is thus hardly a strong example of terrorism paying".

The Irgun's activities were classed as terrorism by MI5. The Irgun has been viewed as a terrorist organization or organization which carried out terrorist acts. In particular the Irgun was branded a terrorist organisation by Britain, the 1946 Zionist Congress and the Jewish Agency. Begin argued that terrorists and freedom fighters are differentiated in that terrorists deliberately try to target civilians, and that the Irgun was not guilty of terrorism since it tried to avoid civilian casualties. At the events to mark the 60th anniversary of the attack, Benjamin Netanyahu, then chairman of Likud and Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset, opined that the bombing was a legitimate act with a military target, distinguishing it from an act of terror intended to harm civilians.<!-- General sources on terrorism:

1. Chronologies of Modern Terrorism – Barry Rubin, Judith Colp Rubin (2007): Chapter 6, Terrorism in the Middle East:

The Arab-Israeli conflict formally began in 1948 but terrorism had appeared earlier during the battles under the British mandatory government.... In addition, two right-wing Jewish groups — the Lehi and the Irgun—carried out attacks on British soldiers and on Arabs.... July 22, 1946 Ninety-one people, mostly civilians and 17 of them Jews, are killed, and 45 injured in a bomb attack by the Irgun on the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which serves as British military headquarters. The attack is in response to massive raids and arrests of Jewish activists and officials by the British. (note: the book appears unreliable as well as non-neutral. eg. it only mentions the KDH's military role when the target of the attack wasn't the military headquarters; it claims that the British embassy in Rome was completely destroyed in the subsequent Irgun bombing of it.)

2. Historical Dictionary of Terrorism – Sean K. Anderson, Stephen Sloan (2009):

22 July: Jewish terror group Irgun bombs British administrative headquarters located in the King David Hotel, Jerusalem, killing 91 people.

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Army and police reports

Various British government papers relating to the bombing were released under the thirty year rule in 1978, including the results of the military and police investigations. The reports contain statements and conclusions contradicted by other evidence, including that submitted to the inquest held after the bombing. Affidavits reflecting badly on the security of the hotel were removed from the army report before it was submitted to the High Commissioner and then the Cabinet in London. A plaque commemorating the bombing reads: "For reasons known only to the British, the hotel was not evacuated." The British Ambassador in Tel Aviv and the Consul-General in Jerusalem protested, saying "We do not think that it is right for an act of terrorism, which led to the loss of many lives, to be commemorated", and wrote to the Mayor of Jerusalem that such an act of terror could not be honoured, even if it was preceded by a warning. The British government also demanded the removal of the plaque, stating that the statement accusing the British of failing to evacuate the hotel was untrue and "did not absolve those who planted the bomb".

thumb|upright|The plaque of the King David Hotel. The Hebrew version has an additional line saying that among the 92 people killed was an Irgun member shot dead.

To prevent a diplomatic incident, and over the objections of Knesset member Reuven Rivlin (Likud), who raised the matter in the Knesset, changes were made in the plaque's text, though to a greater degree in English than the Hebrew version. The final English version reads: "Warning phone calls has been made to the hotel, The Palestine Post and the French Consulate, urging the hotel's occupants to leave immediately. The hotel was not evacuated and after 25 minutes the bombs exploded. To the Irgun's regret, 92 persons were killed." The death toll given includes Avraham Abramovitz, the Irgun member who was shot during the attack and died later from his wounds, but only the Hebrew version of the sign makes that clear.